Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - V1.1 is out. New Cars! New Achievements!

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is a 2010 racing video game in development by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. A version for Wii is also developed by Exient. The game will support 3D-display output on PlayStation 3 and Windows. Hot Pursuit has been described as a "revolutionary" addition to the Need for Speed franchise and is scheduled for release in North America on November 16, 2010, and in Europe on November 19.

Gameplay

Hot Pursuit goes back to the Need for Speed series' roots and takes on the gameplay style of earlier "Hot Pursuit"-titles in the Need for Speed franchise with exotic cars and high-speed police chases. It is primarily inspired by the original Need for Speed on 3DO. Hot Pursuit lets the player play as either a cop or a racer and will feature a full career mode for both roles. The relationship between the cops and racers is described as "a dog chasing down a rabbit" with the cops being more powerful compared to the racers. Each side has several power-ups including calling for roadblocks and radar jamming. Hot Pursuit also features a new social interaction system called "Autolog" described as "Facebook for the game". The game features both single-player and multiplayer game modes with up to eight players; as an option to live multiplayer racing, player can post records and achievements on the Autolog-feed for friends to see, which they then can try to beat. Autolog also contains an experience system called "Bounty". So far the only game mode revealed is "Interceptor 1 vs 1", where one cop chases one racer, but more game modes are to be revealed. Other features include the player being able to add custom soundtracks to the game.

Cars

The driving model of the game is described as "fun and accessible". It is not as arcade-styled as Burnout Paradise, but far from a simulator. All cars in Hot Pursuit are licensed real-world supercars, and the carlist is described as "all the cars you dreamed of driving, in the way you dreamed of driving them". Most cars will be available to both racers and cops, but a few will be exclusive to each side. Also exclusively featured in the Hot Pursuit is the Porsche 918 Spyder. Ferrari however, last seen in a Shift DLC-pack but notably absent from all other Need for Speed games since Hot Pursuit 2, will also be absent from Hot Pursuit. The Lamborghini Reventón will be the only type of Lamborghini available as a cop car, and exclusive for the Cops.

Setting

Hot Pursuit takes place in fictional location called Seacrest County. It is entirely open-world and features over 100 miles (160 km) of open road and, as a reference, it is four times larger than Paradise City, the city of Burnout Paradise.

Here is the official info about the demo, as it will give you perks for the full game when it releases:

In the Need for Speed Hot Pursuit demo, players will be able to chase as a cop in the Dark Horse Hot Pursuit event, speeding through the coastal highway and mountainous ridges of Seacrest County. At the heart of the demo is a social network called Autolog that tracks cop and racer performances while playing solo and uses those statistics to generate fierce competition between friends. Once players add a friend to their Need for Speed friends list, the second event will unlock called Roadsters Reborn, where gamers can compete as racers to set the best times. When they download and play the demo they will also earn 500 bounty award points in the full game for both Cop and Racer career. Accruing bounty will allow players to unlock events and exotic cars and progress through their careers in the full game.

The Need for Speed Hot Pursuit demo will be available for download October 26 on Xbox LIVE(TM) Marketplace worldwide and the PlayStation(R)Network in North America and on October 27 on the PlayStation Network in Europe. The retail game will be available on November 16 in North America and on November 18 and 19 in Europe on the Xbox 360(R) videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation(R)3 computer entertainment system and PC. The Limited Edition can be pre-ordered now on all platforms to gain exclusive content at no extra cost, with participating retailers worldwide (while supplies last). Need for Speed Hot Pursuit will also be available on the Wii(TM) and is being developed by Exient.

Inspired by the OG Need for Speed for the 3DO, eh? Hell, I don't think a lot of people realize the series even went back that far.

Are the races (I'm assuming there's gonna be some regular-ass races) going to be cordoned off sections of the world ala Most Wanted or is it going to be completely open like Paradise? Because the latter got real old to me after the nth race from point A to point B.

All I know is that seeing a screenshot of a Veyron police car was about the most ridiculous and awesome thing.

Burnout Revenge was my go-to multiplayer game on the 360 for quite a long time. Paradise was lots of fun, but I missed the close circuit races from Revenge. From what I can gather, NFS: HP marries them --- closed circuit races, while taking a lot of things from Paradise that made that game lots of fun (particularly being informed of when friends beat your records on particular drags).

But I'm glad they're branching back out into zaney racing and honestly there aren't any more safer hands in the business for the sort than Criterion (HUGE Paradise fan, as well), so my hopes are astronomical!

So I called a friend of mine (we're huge racing game fanboys) and I'm like "hey, you know how NFS has sucked since Most Wanted, right? And how we've always wanted multiplayer with cops and racers? Okay, now imagine a free-roam world four times bigger than paradise city, cops/racer online multiplay, and racing similar to both Most Wanted and Burnout Revenge. Oh, and it's developed by the same guys who made the Burnout series."

im really really excited for this. i put a ridiculous number of hours into burnout 3 and burnout paradise, and the early NFS games (up through hot pursuit 2 i guess) have a special place in my heart that the years and years of terrible NFS games hasnt quite managed to kill.

also if you preorder this through amazon you get a free copy of NFS Shift, so thats cool too.

good arcade racers? burnout 3 is my all time favorite. burnout paradise, burnout revenge, and f-zero gx are also top tier. split/second and blur are both pretty cool and recent. theres probably some more...

Burnout Revenge was my go-to multiplayer game on the 360 for quite a long time. Paradise was lots of fun, but I missed the close circuit races from Revenge. From what I can gather, NFS: HP marries them --- closed circuit races, while taking a lot of things from Paradise that made that game lots of fun (particularly being informed of when friends beat your records on particular drags).

Now, about the NFS franchise-
EA decided on doing an every other year plan to keep the quality up since the last few games weren't so hot (Prostreet, Carbon, Undercover). One year, more sim like, the other, arcade goodness like the days of old. This way, seperate dev teams can have a 12-18 month dev cycle complete with a robust DLC plan.

So last year it was Shift, developed by Slightly Mad Studios- who worked on the GTR pc games.
This year it's back to the free roam arcade fun, Criterion taking the helm.
Next spring will be Shift 2, still developed by SMS. The new rumor is that it will be very sim, it's actually going to be comprised of the next project they were working on while making Shift- Ferrari Project. The engine and some of the assests were used in Shift.

The funny thing about Shift is that SMS created quite the sim engine for EA. EA made coding tweaks to the build and gave it some wonky drfity hancling (which they ended up patching twice due to complaints). The hardcore PC sim crowd have now modded the hell out of the game, people found all the EA coding and removed them, as well as removing a lot of the extra billboards, tents, amusement park rides, giraffes, and whatever EA stuck in there to make the envirnonments more "lively". They've even added F1 cars to it. So PC users have quite the sim now, it's essentially based on GTR with cleaned up visuals.

Personally, I love circuit racers, and I really do enjoy Shift for what it was. Tweak the steering settings, understeer, etc, and it's handles much better.

tl:dr- NFS will be fun again, hopefully for fans of both sim types and arcade.

So I havent played NFS since Hot Persuit 2 (had all the games up to that one at some point or another). Shift is currently on its way in the mail courtesy of Goozex.

*edit* lol @ "arcade like the days of old" when NFS1 was the most sim game of the series.

So true Basticle, they were sim. Like citizen said above, most of the kids these days don't remember that or haven't played them, now people just associate NFS with arcade, wanting them to go back to "arcade roots". Funny.

So I havent played NFS since Hot Persuit 2 (had all the games up to that one at some point or another). Shift is currently on its way in the mail courtesy of Goozex.

*edit* lol @ "arcade like the days of old" when NFS1 was the most sim game of the series.

So true Basticle, they were sim. Like citizen said above, most of the kids these days don't remember that or haven't played them, now people just associate NFS with arcade, wanting them to go back to "arcade roots". Funny.

I'd enjoy an updated NFS Porsche Unlimited game.

So much rage when people say NFS needs to get away from this "pro street" and "shift" stuff and back to where it all started with Underground.

Huh, after seeing more I feel bad about being so dismissive right off the bat. It looks like a fantastic blend of Burnout Paradise and the original NFS: Most Wanted (still probably my favorite NFS game). I'm definitely gonna keep an eye on this.

0·

Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular

im really really excited for this. i put a ridiculous number of hours into burnout 3 and burnout paradise, and the early NFS games (up through hot pursuit 2 i guess) have a special place in my heart that the years and years of terrible NFS games hasnt quite managed to kill.

also if you preorder this through amazon you get a free copy of NFS Shift, so thats cool too.

im really really excited for this. i put a ridiculous number of hours into burnout 3 and burnout paradise, and the early NFS games (up through hot pursuit 2 i guess) have a special place in my heart that the years and years of terrible NFS games hasnt quite managed to kill.

also if you preorder this through amazon you get a free copy of NFS Shift, so thats cool too.

I couldn't see this promo when I scoured Amazon. Do you have a link?

looks like the deal is gone now. if you preordered in august while the deal was still up supopsedly you still get the free copy of shift though, so heres hoping.

Was it a Need For Speed game or Midnight Club where it was open world driving with closed circuit racing, but if you had too much heat from between races (or during) the cops would show up, the race would be called off and you had to escape? Cause I kinda liked that.

0·

Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular

Was it a Need For Speed game or Midnight Club where it was open world driving with closed circuit racing, but if you had too much heat from between races (or during) the cops would show up, the race would be called off and you had to escape? Cause I kinda liked that.

NFS:Most Wanted could have you get heat during a race and have to lose the police after it was over, but I don't think it would cancel the race.